Iraq Intel, Part 364; 60 Minutes of truth about Iraq & WMD

By Lee Russ

Friday, April 21, 2006 at 06:07 PM

The steady drip of refutations continues.  The latest public statement contradicting the Bush administration claims that they genuinely thought Iraq had WMD before we invaded comes from Tyler Drumheller, who headed CIA covert operations in Europe during the run-up to the Iraq war, detailed in a Reuters release appearing in the Sydney Morning Herald.

The revelations will be detailed on a 60 Minutes segment this Sunday.  Drumheller says that intelligence opposing administration claims of a WMD threat came from a top Iraqi official, who provided the US spy agency with other credible information, and who "told us that there were no active weapons of mass destruction programs."

But did that have any impact on the White House?

"The (White House) group that was dealing with preparation for the Iraq war came back and said they were no longer interested."

"We said: 'Well, what about the intel?' And they said: 'Well, this isn't about intel anymore. This is about regime change'."

According to the Reuters piece:

CBS said the CIA's intelligence source was former Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri and that former CIA Director George Tenet delivered the information personally to US President George W Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and other top White House officials in September 2002. They rebuffed the CIA three days later.